Shorn of the sophistries that provide it with a moral disguise, pared
down to its essentials, political government is the systematic use of
exactly the same kind of criminal violence employed by Loughner, only on
a much grander scale. This was illustrated the day before Loughner's
murderous rampage, when agents of the government ruling us used a
remote-controlled drone operated from the safety of an office building
in Nevada to murder six people in Pakistan's North Waziristan region.

Americans were not admonished to observe a moment of chastened silence
in memory of the victims of that exercise in criminal violence. This is,
in part, because observances of that kind would quickly become tedious:
Since 2008, Pakistan -- a country with which the government ruling us
is not formally at war -- has endured at least 250 drone attacks, in
which roughly 1,400 people have been killed.